


Not all who wander...

by BarPurple



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV), Stargate Universe
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Hopeful Ending, Rumbelle Secret Santa 2016
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-20
Updated: 2016-12-20
Packaged: 2018-09-10 15:09:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8921881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BarPurple/pseuds/BarPurple
Summary: After Telford's death Rush asked his other self to help him connect to the interface chair. This is what happened next.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [notalwayslate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/notalwayslate/gifts).



> written for the prompt Have you lost your way? from notalwayslate

Rush navigated the corridors of Berkeley on autopilot as he frowned at his notebook muttering to himself. It was such a common occurrence these days that students and staff simply sidestepped him and even held doors open for him since he had been known to walk into them. He was vaguely aware of the assistance, but it paled in the face of the equations dancing in front of his eyes. The numbers and symbols shattered when he collided with someone hurrying from the opposite direction.

“Oh bloody hell!”

Rush sighed as he bent down to pluck his fallen notebook from the mess of books and papers on the floor.

“You should watch were you’re going, young lady.”

“I believe the same applies to you Doctor Rush.”

His lips twisted into a wry smile, most of his students were too terrified of his acerbic tongue to speak to him like that, it was refreshing to find someone who gave as got as they got. The titles of the books he’d gathered up for her caught his eye; ah, well that explained the confidence, she wasn’t one of his students.

“Have you lost your way?”

She tilted her head and gave him a questioning look.

He tapped the books in his hands.

“Fairy Tales? This is the science department, literature is two buildings over, I think.”

She actually chuckled at him and tucked her hair behind her ear with a small smile.

“Oh I know that, I’m sitting in on your Quantum Mechanics lecture today. You were sent a memo.”

An image of his overflowing inbox flashed in his mind, he never bothered to read interdepartmental mail, if it was truly important someone would track him down and shout at him until he listened. Probably best if he didn’t tell a student that.

“This is an advanced class; please don’t bother me with inane questions if you can’t keep up.”

She gave him a little frown that made him feel that he’d been chastised in some way; “Are intelligent questions allowed, or will that be too much bother for you?”

He stood speechless watching her braid swing as she marched away from him into the lecture hall. He honestly couldn’t remember the last time a student had bitten back like that, he was impressed.

It wasn’t until Rush followed her into the lecture hall that the wrongness of this situation hit him. The whiteboard was covered in equations for mass corona ejection. This wasn’t Berkeley. The day the strange literature student attended his lecture the topic had been the mathematics of faster than light travel. His hands flew to his temples as he remembered where he was; the neural interface chair on the doomed Destiny. The real past came back to him in flashes; Telford’s body jerking against the exposed circuits, the panic, the fear, his other self helping him to connect to the interface chair, the looming feeling of doom that gripped his heart as his eyes slid closed.

“Everyone out! Now!”

There was no scraping of chairs and hurried feet, Rush glared at the students and saw them all vanish into clouds of numbers. The only one who remained was the literature student, he remembered now; Belle French that was her name; she had asked intelligent questions and even handed in the assignment he’d set that lesson. He dimly remembered planning to track her down and persuade her to change majors, but he’d accepted Jackson’s invitation to join the Stargate Program before he’d done anything about it. She gave him an enigmatic smile as she made her way down the steps to lean against his desk.

“So you know where you are?”

“Yes. The question is; why are you here?”

She hopped up to sit on his desk, her legs swinging as she considered his question.

“Destiny chose the most appropriate person from your subconscious to assist you in the what, fifteen minutes left before the ship is destroyed by a massive solar flare.”  
He crossed his arms over his chest and glared at her. She wasn’t real, and oddly she knew that, before him was nothing more than Destiny’s projection of his memory. A very detailed projection, but the ship was good at this sort of thing. He didn’t even have to try to call the distain to his voice. 

“A literature student, who I met once, is Destiny’s best choice for helping me? Either the systems are more damaged that I thought, or the ship is torturing me.”  
Her eyes narrowed as she jutted her chin at him.

“If Destiny were torturing you don’t you think I’d be Telford?”

“Good point.”

“In that case you might want to control the snide attitude. I enjoy the banter, but we really don’t have much time left.”

Out of habit Rush looked at his watch, Young had kept them all on what they’d come to call Earth Time, not that he’d ever bothered with regular hours. His subconscious was clearly feeling dramatic, the hands showed two minutes to midnight. He had a sudden intense memory of the first time he had heard about the Doomsday Clock; the Atomic Scientists’ way of marking the countdown to global catastrophe; his internal jukebox ramped up the Iron Maiden song the eerie representation had inspired and Rush lost it.

Laughter bubbled up in his chest, escaping his mouth in harsh barks, his eyes blurred as tears streamed down his face. He knew he was hysterical so the slap to his face didn’t come as that much of a shock, but it did achieve the desired effect. With gulping breaths he regained control of himself. Thorough tear hazy eyes he saw Belle in front of him, her brow drawn into a frown, her lips pressed into a thin disapproving line.

“You have lost your way.”

He laughed again, a hopeless sound even to his cynical ears.

“I’m about to die, and to be frank I lost my way a very long time ago.”

Violin music drifted through the lecture hall, Rush would have recognised it anywhere, that was Gloria playing her last concert before they found out about the cancer, she’d been transcendent that night. He didn’t try to stop the fresh tears that rolled down his face, the wedding ring that he’d never taken off felt heavy on his hand, a reminder or how much he had lost, how much he had failed, and how far he had run from the pain of Gloria’s death. At least her memory would live on in his other self, some small part of her would continue to travel out into the stars; there was comfort in that, a strange sort of peace.

Belle grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him like a rag doll.

“You haven’t just lost your way, you’ve given up.”

Her tone struck the ever raw nerve deep within him; the suggestion that he was worthless and weak; it was that sneering tone that had propelled him into playground scuffles as a child, into fist fights with lads twice his size when he was older, that tone of voice had driven him to read until the wee hours of the morning, made him work harder than everyone else around him, made him be the best at what he did, no matter that it also made him the least popular. Her words reminded him that first Icarus and then Destiny had given him something to run towards in the bleakest days of his life, and then the true reality of his situation hit him.

This wasn’t the intelligent literature student he had met so long ago; this was Destiny wearing Belle French’s face for reasons that were still unclear to him. This was a doomed ship struggling to survive against impossible odds. This was the ship that had given Rush a reason to live again, a reason to hope again, he wasn’t going to spend his final moments failing her now. He grabbed one of the whiteboard markers from the desk and spun on his heel, with a sweep of his arm he scrubbed the equations from the board staining the sleeve of his white shirt with black ink.

Behind him Belle gave a soft relieved sigh and gathered up more pens. She stood by his shoulder easily falling into step with him as he made his way along the board scrawling equations. After a few moment filled with the sounds of him muttering and the squeak of the marker he stepped back and glared at his work.

“Bollocks.”

Rush jammed the lid on the marker. He scrubbed his hands over his beard and tangled his fingers in his hair.

“I can’t see a way to get us out of this; the star’s gravity well is too strong.”

Belle cocked her head at the equations. He caught himself wondering how many of them she could understand, then remembered that the tiny woman was the embodiment of an Ancient Starship and wondered how many of his scribbles she was correcting in her mind.

“In my home town there was a well that was said to be a gateway to another world.”

His face twisted into a sneer; they were about to die and she was spouting fanciful urban legends? The snide comment he was about to make died on his lips as the figures on the board shifted before his eyes.

“A well as a gate…”

Belle understood from his distant tone and tense stillness that he wasn’t asking a question, he was thinking out loud. In a burst of movement he bit the lid from the marker and spat it to the floor. The tip of the pen bent under the force with which it hit the board, Rush swore and flung the now useless pen away. Belle shoved a fresh marker into his hand and with a touch more care he began scribbling equations. Aware that Belle was at his shoulder Rush switched from muttering to explaining himself out loud.  
“If we open the stargate to an address in a direct line through the star’s centre of mass then it should create a gravity wave that will drag Destiny to that location.”

Belle raised a sceptical eyebrow, “Drag?”

Rush gave a shrug, “Well, slingshot might be a better term.”

“How about explode a sun under us?”

“Yes, that might be accurate, but the sun won’t explode. Implode maybe, but not explode.”

She folded her arms across her chest, her fingers drumming a worried tattoo on her elbows as she chewed her bottom lip.

“How would we stop at the other end?”

“We’d have to program and orbital braking manoeuvre.”

Rush tapped the pen against the whiteboard, there were no further calculations he could make, this was pure theory, he simply didn’t have the data to do anymore. Belle’s hand touched his shoulder and her let her turn his body towards her, but his eyes never left the board. She caught his face between her hands and shifted his head to face her. He felt and heard his whiskers rasp against her palms; it felt so very real, but a dull throb in his temples reminded him that he was connected to the interface chair, but he still found himself transfixed by Belle’s blue eyes, had they really been that blue or was that a detail Destiny had added?

 

“Is there a chance that this will work?”  
Rush licked his lips. If it had been anyone else asking that, Young for example, his reply would have been acidic, but for Belle he softly said; “A very, very slim one.”

His heart twisted as her face fell in defeat. Her hands still held his face; he covered them with his own, squeezing gently until she looked up at him.

“We’ve two choices, do nothing and die, or do this and maybe survive.”

There was a split second of hesitance, and then her face lit up with a determined smile.

“I say we die trying Doctor Rush.”

“I concur, Miss French.”

They stood in understanding silence for a moment, Belle stumbled forward a little as Rush suddenly bounded away from her and thumped the whiteboard in frustration.

“None of this matters! I’m in the interface chair and even if I could get out the ship is wreaked!”

At the sound of Belle’s laughter he turned slowly to face her, disbelief twisting his features.

“You think this is funny?”

“A little. You are in the interface chair. You are part of Destiny. You are in the best place to put this plan into action.”

Rush snorted derisively and wave his hands dramatically at the room around them.

“A lecture hall at Berkeley is hardly the best place to control an Ancient Starship!”

Belle rolled her eyes and smirked at him. Rush had been about to thump the whiteboard again, but he staggered as the room changed around them, and his fist connected with the control panel of Destiny’s bridge instead. Rush’s confused frown made Belle giggle.

“Okay. Alright, so we’re on the bridge, but is anything we do here going to make the slightest bit of difference in the real world?”

“When was the last time you took a leap of faith Rush?”

“Jumping through the stargate on Icarus.”

The answer had fallen from his lips without thought. In truth he’d taken jumps into the unknown since then, but that was, and probably would always be, the single greatest defining moment of his life, that one time when he couldn’t apply logic to his situation and he had to rely on the belief that everything would work out. It had brought him to Destiny and now a similar leap was needed to keep the journey moving forward. He threw himself into the seat and began checking the ship’s systems.

“Bollocks.”

Belle sat down at the adjacent console. 

“I know it’s bad, but can you make it work?”

Rush gave her a curious look. When presented with the image of a tiny woman, it was easy to forget that he was essentially talking to the ship; obviously Belle knew most of the systems were fried and many of the rest had been scavenged by the crew of the other Destiny, but she still managed to look hopeful. Even his bitter withered soul couldn’t come up with a scathing response to her question.

“It’s going to be bumpy; we’ll be falling into position, but falling with style.”

“Did you just quote Toy Story?”

“No idea it was something Eli said when he crashed a Kino. We’re ready.”

He looked at Belle who reached for his hand and gave him a definite nod. Rush hit the command control and held on tight to her hand.

The rumbling of the stargate dialling echoed through the shaking ship as the gravity well sucked them in. Circuits blew on the bridge showering them both in sparks. And then there was a blinding white light.

This is it I’m dead. 

_Not yet you’re not._

Jumbled memories flooded Rush; burying Gloria, discovering the beauty of mathematics, (a castle under attack), the first girl he kissed, Daniel Jackson asking him to join the Icarus program, marvelling at Mandy’s brilliant mind, (a yellow ball gown and a leather clad beast), {these aren’t my memories}, his and Gloria’s laughter filled honeymoon, laughing at O’Neil chewing someone out for creating more paperwork, (a library full of books), the first punch he took; his first fuck, (an evil woman and smoke all around), his shock at Eli solving the ninth chevron problem, the frustration of his conflict with Young, (abandoned on a strange, hostile world), {was that my memory or the other?}, the determination to survive and the fear of being alone.

I don’t want to be on my own anymore.

 _You won’t be alone ever again Nicholas Rush._

Rush blinked his eyes open as the interface chair released him. Around him every alarm Destiny had was sounding. He became aware of a pressure on his hand, looking down he found slim fingers wrapped around his own. Someone was holding his hand. 

“Belle?”

Amid the din the ship was making he couldn’t hear his own voice, he saw Belle’s lips move as she made some reply. He rubbed at his aching head with his free hand and yelled; “Someone turn off that bloody racket!”

Silence fell. 

“Thank you,” he wasn’t sure who he was thanking, and he had more pressing concerns right now, “Is this real?”

Belle squeezed his hand so hard it hurt, but the sensation of his bones grating didn’t rule out this still being the interface scenario Destiny had created. In fact Belle’s presence suggested that he was still connected to the chair. Slowly she shook her head.

“This isn’t the interface, you’re out, and so am I finally.”

“What do you mean finally?”

She looked on the verge of tears, he wasn’t sure if it was his harsh tone that had caused that or the shock that they were probably alive.

“You didn’t want to be alone.”

There was a story there, something she wasn’t quite ready to tell him, his own muddled thoughts and emotions from the journey caused a swell of nausea deep in his stomach. Rush lurched out of the chair and collapsed to his knees retching and coughing. A gentle soothing hand rubbed his back until the bout past, he sat back on his heels and with the same tender care Belle pushed his hair out of his face.

“When did you cut yourself?”

Rush winced as he touched his cheek, the cut he’d received before the time loop still stung. He hadn’t had that in the interface world. Maybe they were in the real world, it wasn’t much to put his faith in, but he’d just slung a starship through a sun based on much less. He gave Belle a crooked smile.

“Shall we see where we are?”

By unspoked agreement they made their way to the observation deck. The corridors showed signs of the battering Destiny had taken, in more than one place they had to scramble under fallen panels and edge carefully by exposed circuits, but the ship appeared to be holding together. Once they entered Rush kept his eyes on the deck, his hair helping obscure the huge windows from his view. He realised Belle was doing the same thing when she bumped into him. They shared a shy glance before Rush took her hand. At the railing they both took a deep breath but didn’t look up. Belle gave a soft laugh.

“On the count of three?”

“Aye. One.”

“Two.”

“Three.”

Rush’s jaw dropped. Hanging in the star strewn sky was a glittering planet, great white clouds drifted over sparkling seas and huge swathes of green jungle or forest. The braking manoeuvre he’d programed had worked judging by their stable distance from the surface. Beside him Belle gasped as the clouds shifted and a gigantic towering city came into view.

“I always want to see the world, never thought I’d be seeing so many other worlds.”

Again her words made him frown, but once more he was distracted; a flash for the surface caught his eye; he nudged Belle and pointed it out to her.

“I think they know we are here.”

The vapour trail of the rising shuttle held their attention for a long while. Finally Belle rolled her shoulders and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear.

“Shall we go and say hello?”

“It’ll take them a while to get here.”

Rush wondered if he should be afraid, or at least apprehensive considering his last two encounters with aliens, but all he felt was a sense of excited anticipation. One look at Belle’s eyes told him he wasn’t alone in that feeling. Her eyes were stunningly blue. From a dusty corner of his memory he recalled part of a song from some Disney film he’d watched as a kid; like a bolt out of the blue, fate steps in and sees you through; it was a perfect description of Belle. 

“Aye, at least we’ll find out where we are.”

She gave him one of those sunny smiles that came so easily to her face, but his brows drew into a slight frown.

“Now all I’ve to do find out is where you are from.”

Belle blew out a slow breath; “Do you believe in fairy tales, Doctor Rush?”

He bit back his automatic negative response and gave her a shrug instead.

“I’m on a starship built by a race that humans worshiped as gods, so I am willing to suppose there may be more to fairy tales.”

She chuckled at his cautious answer.

“Oh there is a lot more to them. I’m Belle, better known in your world as Beauty.”

He couldn’t understand why she was explaining basic French to him, but he put the pieces she was offering him together quickly.

“Beauty, as in Beauty and the Beast?”

She nodded sadly, “He wasn’t a beast, he wasn’t always a good man, but he was a man, a wizard with a great many enemies.”

Rush recognized the sadness in her eyes, he’d seen it in the mirror often enough when thoughts of Gloria snuck up on him.

“And you loved him.”

“Oh yes, yes I did, deeply and truly, as much as he loved me,” Belle’s voice cracked and Rush wished he had a handkerchief to offer her as she wiped her nose on her sleeve, “Our love gave his enemies an easy way to attack him. The Evil Queen kidnapped me.”

There was venom in Belle’s voice as she named what Rush thought of as a Disney villain. 

“She worked some great spell that tore me from my world and dropped me in yours.”

The memories that he’d glimpsed as they journeyed here were making some sense now, as did the deep fear of being alone, something both he and Belle had experienced first-hand. He wanted to pull her close and tell her everything would be okay, but there was a good chance that wasn’t true, (he had no idea of the aliens intentions), and offering comfort didn’t come easily to him. He settled for rubbing circles against her hand with his thumb, and leading her over to one of the couches, it was a small gesture but Belle’s watery smile as she sat down suggested it was appreciated. She didn’t let go of his hand and Rush saw no reason to take it back from her. 

“I was getting by for a few years, actually begun to build a life for myself, and then there was the strange lights in the night.”

“Alien abduction, or more magic?”

There was a sentence Rush never thought he’d utter in earnest. Belle gave him a shrug.

“I don’t know. I don’t even know how long I was on Destiny before the ship told me I was needed.”

Rush was going over everything he’d discovered in Destiny’s systems.

“Why did I never find you?”

Belle bumped him with her shoulder; “Why would you look for a Disney Princess in an Ancient computer system?”

That made him laugh and soon she was giggling along with him, a flash from outside quieted them, the shuttle from the surface as gliding by heading for the starboard docking pad. It looked similar in design to Destiny’s own shuttles, Rush wondered if that was a good sign that whoever was approaching was friendly. 

“Let’s go meet our guests.”

The nervousness hit Rush as they waited for the airlock to open. He was grateful for Belle by his side, she moved in closer to him and whispered; “It’ll be alright.”

Where she got her endless supply of hope from he’d never know. The airlock hissed open and he was met with his own eyes.

“Doctor Rush.”

The man opposite was him, older and greyer and a good twenty pounds heavier, but it was him.

“Doctor Rush. Where are we? And how long has it been for you?”

His older self sniffed and tapped his cheek. Rush’s hand flew to the cut on his face. 

“Longer than it has been for you. But you still found time to pick up a hitch hiker?”

“Erm, this is Belle. It’s a long story.”

Belle was looking between the two of them, clearly puzzled by the two of them; she gave the older Rush a small wave, but didn’t say anything. He returned the wave, and Rush recognized the burning curiosity in his eyes.

“Well our story covers fifteen years, so I think a meal is in order for the telling of it. Come on, I want to see Young’s face when we walk in together.”

He turned back into the shuttle. Rush surged forward and caught his arm.

“Where are we?”

A joyful smile he didn’t know his own face was capable of making answered him.

“Journey’s end.”

His older self walked into the shuttle, leaving Belle and Rush alone for a moment. There really was only one thing they could do, but he still asked; “Shall we? I mean it might not be a happily ever after…”

He’d meant it as a joke, but for a second sadness dimmed her eyes. It was gone as quickly as it came and a smile brightened her face.

“It’s better than that, it’s a whole new story.”


End file.
